Entering Worilds Of Pain

BLACKSBURG — There's one element of Virginia Tech defensive end Jason Worilds' game that makes him dangerous. It's the speed that makes opposing offensive linemen skittish.

Add Miami tackles Matt Pipho and Jason Fox to the list of the victimized.

Coming in to Tech's 31-7 victory Saturday against No. 9 Miami, Hokies defensive coordinator Bud Foster didn't care what the statistics from Miami's first two games said - only one sack surrendered and no pressures against Harris. Worilds would help change all that anyway.

"My goal coming in to the game was to make them respect my speed," Worilds said.

In the second quarter, he got a few steps on Pipho, and proceeded to make the Hurricanes' right tackle look foolish. Pipho stumbled and fell flat on his back as Worilds plowed through him on his way to sacking Harris.

"I'm pretty sure he crossed his feet on that (sack) at that time," Worilds said. "I had a couple of speed rushes, got (Pipho) to respect my speed and then we could start doing some different things (against Miami's offensive line)."

Worilds, who played despite suffering from back spasms early in the week, finished the game with 11/2 of No. 11 Tech's three sacks. When it was apparent Pipho wasn't having much success stopping Worilds, Miami (2-1 overall and Atlantic Coast Conference) got so desperate to squelch Worilds' pressure it tried moving Fox from left tackle to right tackle. Nothing stopped Worilds.

Tech (3-1, 1-0), which also got a sack from strong safety Dorian Porch and a half-sack from defensive tackle Kwamaine Battle, had just three sacks this season entering the Miami game.

"We felt like going in to the game we had a good pressure package," Foster said. "We just had to get them in to those situations and we were able to do it. We were able to mix in some blitz pressure. Our ends were able to get good pressure on the quarterback. I felt like we needed to get a better push up the middle, but we were still able to mix in pressures."